“That stone was slipped into my begging-bowl one day.”
“Not much of a find as an eatable!”
“That is so, though according to fairy tales the likes has dropped out of people’s mouths before now. Ye may not suspicion the truth, but it’s a fine big ruby! I believe it was found stuck in red mud in the ruby district, and someone who had a wish for me dropped it into the patta, and I—who have a wish for you—pass it on.”
“But if it is so valuable I could not dream of accepting such a gift,” protested Shafto. “You will have to take it back—thanks awfully, all the same.”
“Oh, ye never rightly know the price of them stones till they are cut; but the knowledgeable man I showed it to said it might be worth a couple of thousand pounds, and I’ve come to tell ye this—so that ye can turn it into coin—and if ye wanted to get out of Burma, there ye are!”
“That is most awfully good of you, but I really could not think of accepting your treasure, or its value in money—and I have no wish to leave Burma, the country suits me all right.”
As he ceased speaking Shafto got up, unlocked a leather dispatch box and produced the ruby, which he placed in the large, well-kept hand of the visitor.
“Well, now, I call this entirely too bad!” the latter exclaimed as he turned it over. “An’ I need not tell ye that I can make no use of the ruby, being vowed to poverty—which you are not; and I want to offer some small return for what ye did for me last time I was down in Rangoon. I can’t think what ails ye to be so stiff-necked; is there nothing at all I can do for ye?”
“Well, Mung Baw, since you put it like that, I believe you could give me what would be far more use than a stone—some valuable help.”
“Valuable help!” repeated the pongye, adjusting false horn spectacles and staring hard. “Then as far as it’s in me power the help of every bone in me body is yours and at your service.”